I've Got The Blues, But I'm Too Damn Mean To Cry
(Protest in early blues and gospel)

by Max Haymes

This is the full essay soon to be published in short form as the liner
notes for 'I've Got The Blues, But I'm Too Damn Mean To Cry' on
JSP Records
4 CD boxed set (see the Discography below). We hope you all enjoy it.

The word
‘protest’ in the 21st. century is often linked with, and
refers to ‘political protest’. But this is really a tautology or
two words strung together meaning the same thing. Erroneously,
people refer to being political as involvement by a group, or party,
retaining power of government or aspiring to acquire this power for
themselves.

But
politics is a much broader concept. It covers virtually
everything in our daily lives from birth to death. Public
health and safety, education, transportation, energy, agriculture,
social and environmental issues, are major aspects governing the
degree of quality we experience in our time on the planet. Indeed,
for African Americans in the first 3 centuries of enslavement,
politics and protest meant life itself. While the former spent
much time talking of what could be achieved, the latter attempted to
have this talk transformed into action.

This
4-CD set is concerned with the broader concept. Necessarily
so, as blacks in the US were often denied access to ‘politics’,
certainly into the 1950s. Apart from a brief spell during
Reconstruction after the Civil War until the Hayes Compromise in
1877, which resulted in returning power to whites in the South and
the withdrawal of Federal troops; in exchange for the Southern vote
in the coming presidential election. By the turn of the 20th.
century blacks were completely disenfranchised. Given the
ever-present real danger in the racial set-up of ‘Jim Crow’, it is
quite understandable that the earlier blues singers did not concern
themselves too much with politics-even where they might have done.

When the great Charley Patton sang “Every day
seem like murder here” (1)
he was quite likely referring not only to his home state of
Mississippi but the whole of the USA as well! By his inclusion
of the following verse, he is protesting that he’s got the ‘Overseas
Blues’ because he is unable to leave the US to go and live overseas
in say France or England, which were far less concerned about the
colour of a person’s skin and no doubt supported by glowing stories
from returning black soldiers at the end of WW I.

Some people say them Overseas Blues
ain’t bad.

Spoken:

Of course they are!

Some people say them Overseas Blues
ain’t bad.

Spoken:

What was a-matter wid em?

It must not-a bin them Overseas Blues
I had. (2)

Rare indeed, are the words appearing in the
Memphis Jug Band’s version of He’s In The Jail House Now.
[Victor 23256].

I remember last election; (Yeah!)

Jim Jones got in action. (Uh-huh!)

Said he’d vote for the man that paid
the biggest price.

Next day at the poll;

He voted with heart an’ soul.

But instead of voting once, he voted
twice. (Uh-huh!)

Ref:

He’s in the jailhouse now;

He’s in the jailhouse now.

Instead of him stayin’ at home;

Lettin’ these white folks’ business
alone. (Why’s that, now?)

He’s in the jailhouse now. (3)

This appears unique as an explicit protest
against the white ruling political regime, in the whole of the
pre-war blues era (1890-1943). The Memphis Jug’s vocalist also
has a dig at police corruption.

You remember Henry Crew?

That sold that no-good booze.

He sold it to the police on the beat.

Now, Henry’s feelin’ funny;

Police give ’im marked money.

He’s got a ball an’ chain round ‘is
feet.

Ref:

He’s in the jailhouse now. etc,
(4)

Elsewhere in this song, Charlie Nickerson
includes the lines:

If he’s got a political friend;

Judge [‘s] sentence he will suspend.
(5)

The only reason the MJB got away with this song
(I suspect) was due to their huge popularity with both blacks and
whites in the Memphis area and even the city’s puritanical Mayor
Crump who would check the group out, on Beale Street sometimes.

More often than not, any protest in the early
Blues was cloaked in one or more levels of meaning or aimed at ‘a
substitute’ which ultimately attacked white people from whom many
blacks received bad treatment. This was generally a
misbehaving partner in a failing relationship. Or a member of
a train crew who were blamed for ‘taking my baby away’, and
sometimes the train or railroad itself became the target. Like
Charley Patton, the Mississippi Sheiks were also from the Magnolia
State.

Probably the most famous string band in the South, they usually
recorded featuring two or more rarely three musicians. Immensely
popular with both black and white audiences alike, they cut a lot
of their sessions in the state of Texas. Their brand of Blues was
in complete antithesis to the harsh, deep-felt music of Charley Patton.
On their Jailbird Love Song [OKeh 8834] in 1930, Walter Vinson on
vocal takes a gentle dig at the white old timey (otm) singers with a
very creditable yodel. More in-depth are the words in this song,
accompanied by a second singer, Bo Carter. Delivered in raffish
manner, nevertheless the target is the injustice towards blacks by white
police officers. In this case wrongful arrest, simply based on the fact
the subject was black as well as being a stranger. Not obviously, but
protest all the same.

1.

When I was a rounder, I stopped in
New Orleans;

I was a great long way, the way from
home; I didn’t know nobody that I seen.

2.

I was walkin’ along the street one
day. I didn’t mean no harm;

The police looked up an’ they seen me
an’ they began to make their alarm.

Ref:

Now, ain’t it hard? Ain’t it hard?

Just lookin’ through the bars.

The police looked an’seen me an’ they
began to make their alarm.

3.

They seen I was a stranger. They
pulled down on my trail;

Soon as they had me surrounded, they
carried me to the city jail.

Ref:

Now, ain’t it hard? Ain’t it hard?

Just lookin’ through the bars.

Soon as they had me surrounded, they
carried me to the city jail. (6)

Even before the unfortunate kidnapped Africans
arrived on American shores, music and protest ran hand-in-hand.
This involved a young woman “who was likely an Iglo speaker,”.
(7)
So, it was related: “When the young woman came aboard the
Liverpool slave ship the ‘Hudibras’ in Old Calabar in 1785, she
instantly captured everyone’s attention. She had beauty,
grace, and charisma: ‘Sprightliness was in her every gesture, and
good nature beamed in her eyes.’ When the African musicians
and instruments came out on the maindeck twice a day for
‘dancing’, the exercising of the enslaved, ‘she appeared to great
advantage, as she bounded over the quarter-deck, to the rude strains
of African melody,’ observed a smitten sailor named William
Butterworth. She was the best dancer and the best singer on
the ship…Captain Evans gave her the name Sarah.”.(8)

This is the first instance I have come across a
definite reference to slaves on board with instruments and
definitely the first time a particular slave found so much attention
from white observers. ‘Sarah’ becomes, just for a moment, a
vibrant and very human being! Rediker continued: “Sarah
survived the Middle Passage [and] She was sold at Grenada,
with almost three hundred others, in 1787…When she went ashore she
carried African traditions of dance, song, and resistance with
her.”. (9)
Sarah had become one of Captain Evans’ ‘favorites’ even though
suspected of a bloody revolt whilst still on his ship. It
transpired that both Sarah and her mother (also on the ‘Hudibras’)
“not only knew about the plot, they had indeed been involved in it.
Sarah had likely used her privileged position as a favorite,
[probably via coerced sexual ‘favours’ to Captain Evans] and her
great freedom of movement that this entailed, to help with planning
and perhaps even to pass tools to the men, allowing the men to hack
off their shackles and manacles.”. (10)

Alan Lomax, writing in 1992, stated “the blues
[is] the first satirical song form in the English
language—mounted on cadences that have now seduced the world.”.
(11)
He also claimed that the griots, ancestors of the blues singer, from
West Africa such as “the virtuosic bards of Senegal, accompanying
themselves on complex stringed instruments backed up by rhythm
orchestras, still play a leading role in the life of many West
African communities. They are social satirists whose verses
once on a time dethroned chieftans.” [sic] The
bluesmen of the Delta continued this satiric tradition, depicting,
as far as they dare, the ills and ironies of life in their
caste-ridden society.”.
(12)

In Sam Charter’s pioneering book The Country
Blues in 1959, he quoted lines of the most simple eloquence,
with a hard-hitting punch, around the turn of the 20th.
century when the Blues had only recently emerged as a recognizable
form. Indeed, an adaptation of these lines form the title of this
set for JSP Records.

I got de blues,

But I’m too damn mean to cry. (13)

Lomax used a variation in his Land Where The
Blues Began.

I got the blues and I’m too damn mean
to cry;

I got the blues and I just can’t be
satisfied… (14)

These lines, slightly toned down, appeared
in the unlikely shape of an early vaudeville blues title in 1921.
This was I’ve Got The Blues But I’m Just Too Mean To Cry [Arto
9110] by Dorothy Dodds; one of only five recordings she made.
Yet as David Evans said, Ms. Dodds “shows that she was the equal
of any of the other blues singers that recorded in 1921,” (15)
She includes a cool slice of early rap:

You all see tears in my eye;

I cry so much that I gone dry.

The way the boys give me the slip;

Someone would think I had the grippe.
[aka influenza]

A good man now, is hard to find;

But I’d be satisfied with any kind.

All night long I sit an’ fret;

I’m like a rainy day an’ that’s all
wet.

Ref:

Because I got the blues, but I’m just
too mean to cry. (16)

But sometimes frustration and anger at the
powerless situation blacks had to endure under the ever-present
racialist regime known as ‘Jim Crow’, in the first decades of the 20th.
century, could not always be contained in symbolism or multi-layer
of meaning. This naturally led to violence in some lyrics of
the Blues and its forbears. A well-known example occurs
in the legend of a notorious black outlaw from the 19th.century,
(in Alabama) known as ‘Railroad Bill’ (aka Morris Slater). A
variant reappeared in the mid-1950s in the British skiffle revival:

I’ve got a .45 pistol on a .38 frame,

How can I miss when I’ve got dead
aim.

The second line had appeared in a Butterbeans and
Susie song ‘Bowlegged Papa’, and shortly after Ida Cox used these
words as a title on Paramount in 1925. Some 4 years later Will
Bennett made the only black commercial recording of ‘Railroad Bill’.
(see Vaudeville Blues. 4-CD set. JSP 77161 for these
recordings.) in the pre-war era. It contained another
verse which was not often used by the British skiffle heroes.

Buy me a gun just as long as my arm;

Kill everybody ever done me wrong.
(17)

This verse appeared in several other early blues,
not related to ‘Railroad Bill’. Although Will Bennett sings of
taking a stand on a mountain top with a ‘.41 Derringer in my right
an’ left hand’ his angry words seem almost benign in comparison to a
vaudeville blues record called Mad Mama’s Blues [Edison
51477] where Josie Miles surely reflected the pent-up feelings
of rage and indignation experienced by blacks over many years of
blatant oppression. [It is significant that in the
earlier 20th. century nearly all the race riots in the
South were started by whites. Until, in
fact, the 1966 riot in Watts,California].

Gonna set the world on fire;

That is my one mad desire.

I’m a devil in disguise;

Got murder in my eyes.

Now, I could see blood runnin’
through the streets. (x 2)

Could see everybody layin’ dead at my
feet.

The man invented war sure is my
friend. (x 2)

Don’t believe that I’m sinkin’,

just look what a hole I am in.

Give me gunpowder, give me dynamite.
(x 2)

Yes! I’d wreck the city. Gonna blow
it up tonight.

I took my big Winchester down off the
shelf. (x 2)

When I get through shootin’ there
won’t be nobody left. (18)

Ad. in Sears
Roebuck cat. 1897

It might be that the great Texas bluesman Blind
Lemon Jefferson (see JSP 7706] was inspired by the Josie Miles song to
record his Dynamite Blues [Paramount 12739] some 5 years later.
But whereas Ms. Miles could ‘hide’ behind a claim of insanity, Lemon
directs all his anger at the safer target of a woman who threw him down.

I feel like scrappin’, havin’ a great
big row;

I said I feel like scrappin’, havin’
a great big row.

Because the woman I love said she
don’t want me no how.

She swore that she love me. I know
she doin’ me wrong;

An’ she swore that she love me, but I
know she done me wrong.

I’m gonna start somethin’, man, an’
I’m tellin’ you it won’t be long.

The way I feel now, I could get a keg
of dynamite;

I say, the way I feel now, I could
get a keg of dynamite.

Put all in ‘er window an’ blow her up
late at night.

I could swallow some fire, take a
drink of gasoline. (x 2)

Throw it up all over that woman an’
let ‘er go up in steam.

I’m get in a cannon an’ let ‘em blow
me out to sea;

I’m goin’ get in a cannon an’ let ‘em
blow me out to sea.

Goin’ down with the whales, let the
mermaids make love with me. (19)

It’s not hard to imagine that Lemon’s girl friend
is actually a much safer substitute as a recipient for what many
black people would like to do to whites who had treated them
unjustly and often brutally.

The
near-white looking
Bessie Tucker. 1928

But more often this ‘violent streak’ in the
Blues appeared almost fleetingly like a thin pencil of a sun’s
ray between fading dark clouds. Fellow Texan, Bessie
Tucker, with the power of Charlie Patton and the ‘field holler’
style of Texas Alexander; was apparently no stranger to the
harsher elements of the Southern prison system, if her
‘Penitentiary’, ‘Mean Old Master Blues’, and ‘Black Name Moan’
are anything to go by. On her ‘Key To The Bushes’
[Victor 23385] in 1929, the scene is part of the brutal
convict-lease system still so prevalent, in the 1920s. The
‘key’ she refers to is the Captain’s ‘big horse gun’ with which
she intends to escape the prison gang, probably killing the
white man in the process as revenge for the murder of her
partner ‘Sal’. As the sleeve note writer put it: “once
you hear her voice … A somber, even somewhat dangerous aura
comes immediately to the forefront.”
(20).

Protesting the often vicious character of brutish
white, armed guards or ‘overseers’.

Captain got a big horse pistol. Ahhhh-hah! An’ he think
he’s bad;

Captain got a big horse pistol. Hah-hahh! An’ he
think he’s bad.

I’m gonna take it this mornin’ if he make me mad.
(23)

In 1933, Jack Kelly’s rasping vocal accompanied
by some blues-drenched fiddle from Will Batts, includes the
threatening line ‘ I got a 32-20 shoot just like a .45’ and
continues the ‘escape to the bushes’ theme. Using the
widespread term ‘Mr. Charlie’, for a white man.

Ah! Mr. Charlie, you had better watch your men.
(x 2)

They all goin’ to the bushes an’ they are goin’
in. (24)

The words of Bessie Tucker and Jack Kelly
refer to one of six general sectors of protest in early blues and
gospel—being ‘on the inside’ or imprisoned. Whether in a
convict-lease railroad gang, on a prison farm, the state
penitentiary, or in the jailhouse itself. Blacks were
routinely arrested by whites so as to use them for cheap labour and
to control ‘their Negroes.’ Many fine field recordings made by John
and Alan Lomax included more explicit protest from the Library of
Congress archives. One group of prisoners was led by Ernest
Williams who were on the Central State Farm in Sugar Land, Texas,
Fort Bend County. In 1933 they performed the haunting chant
Ain’t No More Cane On This Brazos [AFS 199 A1]. The Brazos
River snakes its way through East Texas down in Brazoria County,
emptying into the Gulf of Mexico; with a total length of 1050 miles.
The cane denotes the vast sugar cane plantations spreading across
the Texas lowlands.

You
ought to come on the river in nineteen-four;

(Ohhh!-Ohhh!-Ohhh!)

You could find a dead man on ever’ turn row.

(Ohhh!-Ohhh!-Ohhh!) (25)

And supporting the scenario ‘painted’ by Bessie
Tucker.

You ought to been on the river in nineteen-ten;

(Ohhh!-Ohhh!-Ohhh!)

They rollin’ [working] the women, like they drive
the men.

(Ohhh!-Ohhh!-Ohhh!) (26)

Another aspect of the ‘prison sector’ of black
protest concerned the often- invincible heroes such as Long John,
“a legendary character who outran the police, the sheriff, the
deputies with all their bloodhounds, and escaped from jail to
freedom.” (27)
Celebrated by many singers, including Papa Charlie Jackson on his
‘Long Gone Lost John’ in 1928, (see JSP 77184) and the earliest on
record by Stovepipe No.1 in August 1924 as ‘Lonesome John’; although
the singer refers to ‘Lost John’. [For a more
detailed discussion on ‘Long/Lost John’ see p.p.68-70. Songsters
& Saints.
Paul Oliver. [Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 1984]
Also in Texas, another prison group recording was made for the L of
C, led by Washington (‘Lightning’), to the accompaniment of swinging
axes. This was
Long John [LC:AAFS 13, AFSL 3 (L.P.)]. At least 9 verses
not quoted from the Rounder CD notes, are on the recording;
indicating that the song was far longer in live performance and
indeed does fade out. Some of which, due to space
restrictions, only a few can be quoted here. They include one
featured on the famous 1956 ‘skiffle’ [Skiffle
comes from the US back in the 1920s. Paramount issued a ‘Hometown
Skiffle’ in 1929 featuring some of their major blues artists
doing parts of their recordings as a promotional disc, to boost
sales of their output. British skiffle was largely made
up of home-made instruments, such as the tea-chest bass, washboard,
etc. First used of course in early blues.]
version cut by Lonnie Donegan in the UK. Having refused good
advice from his girl friend ‘Rosie’, Lightning ‘got to runnin’
around’ and ending up in the Darrington State Prison Farm.

Sung in the traditional black call and response
form, where the group repeat the leader’s line, this makes powerful
listening.

First thing I know;

Well, I got in jail.

With a mouth poked out;

Well, now I’m in the pen.

An’ I can’t get out.

Ref:

It’s Long John;

He’s long gone. (x 3)

Well-a
John made;

‘Is pair of shoes.

Well,
the funniest shoes;

That was ever seen.

Had a
heel in front;

An’ a heel behind.

Well, they didn’t know where;

That boy was gwine. [aka ‘going’]

Ref:

He Long John; etc.

Well, in two or three minutes;

Let me catch my wind.

An; in two or three minutes;

I’m gone again.

Ref:

Oh! Long John; etc.

Like a turkey through the corn;

Who’s [in] long corn. [aka ‘tall corn’]

Well, it’s John, John’;

Well, marble-eyed John. [aka ‘hard-eyed’]

Well-a, tenderfoot John;

With a long coat on:

Just a-skippin’ through the corn.

Ref:

Ah! Long John; etc.

Well, you gonna tell;

What the Captain said.

Now, if you boys work;

Gonna treat pretty well.

Now, if you don’t work;

Gonna give you plenty hell.

Ref:

Now, long gone; etc. (28)

But generally, blues singers adopted a far less
violent/extreme attitude.. Part of the African American culture
included mythical locations which they could escape to, where no
whites existed; both psychological and actual safe havens-or the
‘mythological sector’. Probably, the most well-known in the
Blues is a land of plenty –Diddy Wah-Diddy. This featured
endless wonders such as obliging ready-cooked chickens coming down
the road who already have forks sticking in them saying “Eat me! Eat
me!”, and endless lines of wagons filled with cotton, reaching right
round the base of a mountain to keep the money rolling in. Of
course the recording by Blind Blake (see JSP 7714 ) has transformed
this title into sexual symbolism-in itself a form of protest.

Another such ‘land of plenty’ probably came into
being after recorded blues had commenced, in 1920. This was a
form of ‘heaven’ yet to be constructed and appears in blues by both
men and women singers-albeit with differing emphasis. In 1930,
erstwhile farmer-cum-preacher, Son House chose the path of the Blues
and recorded one of the most raw-voiced sides in the Mississippi
Delta style. (see JSP 7715).

Ohhh! I wished I had me a heaven of my own;

(Spoken):

Great God Almighty!

Yeahhhh! Heaven of my own.

Then I’d give all my women a long, long happy
home. (29)

In 1934, at his last pre-war recording session,
in Texas, at Fort Worth, Texas, Alexander greatly extended this
theme; stamping his secular credentials in indelible ink.

Take me out of this [river] bottom before the
high water rise. (x 2)

You know I ain’t no Christian, an’ I don’t wanna
be baptized

I never been to Heaven, people but I’ve been
told;

Says, I never been to Heaven, people but I’ve
been told.

Oh! Lord. It’s women up there got they mouth
chock full of gold.

I’m gonna build me a heaven, have a
kingdom of my own;

Gonna
build me a heaven, have a kingdom of my own.

So
these brownskin women can cluster around my throne. (30)

In 1924, Bessie Smith put out the very fine
Work House Blues [Columbia 14032-D] which appears to be
introducing this ‘heaven’ verse. But her take differs markedly
from her male contemporaries, Son House and Texas Alexander.
[Other titles listed in B.&G.R. as ‘Wash
House’/’Work House Blues’ are different songs omitting the ‘heaven’
verse.]

Say, I wish I had me a heaven of my own;

Say, I wish I had a heaven of my own.

I’d give all the poor girls, a long, old happy
home. (31)

In the South these ‘poor girls’ would include
prostitutes and the highly-exploited black domestic servants which
makes up the 3rd. sector of early black protest in the
Blues. The latter found a major source of employment in
this occupation despite the long hours of endless drudgery, poor pay
and racial abuses, often from their white female bosses. Although
again often more implied there were rarer instances when a
singer would tell it like it is. The ubiquitous black washerwoman
was one who made some of her anger, despair, and disillusionment
more obvious. Bessie Smith, the ‘Empress of the Blues’, on
another title Washwoman’s Blues [Columbia 14375-D] is but one
example.

1.

All day long I’m slavin’. All day
long I’m bustin’ suds. (x2)

Gee! My hands are tired washin’ out these dirty duds.

2.

Lord, I do more work than a 40-11
Gold Dust Twin; [a washing machine]

Lord, I do more work than 40-11 Gold Dust Twin.

Done my self a-achin’ from my head down to my
chin.

3.

Sorry, I do washin’, just to make my
livelihood. (x 2)

Oh! The wash woman’s life, it ain’t a
bit of good.

4.

Rather be a scullion, cookin’ in
white folk’s yard. ( x 2)

I could eat a-plenty, wouldn’t have to work so hard. (32)

Some wash women did this mind-destroying job in
their own place, while others had to take a heavy basket down to the
nearest muddy stream, using the humble washboard.

Me an’
my washboard sure do have some cares an’ woes. (x 2)

In the muddy water, wringin’ out these dirty
clothes. (33)

A couple of years earlier, in 1926, Edna Winston
painted a similar picture.

Just scrubbin’ the steps in my coat;

For a livin’, boy, I cut my throat.

Ref:

Got a pail in my hand;

On my knees all day long.

Ain’t got no chance to even be bad;

So full of ambition, sure makes me sad.

Lordy, Lord! What am I to do? (34)

Ozie McPherson’s Down In The Bottom Where I
Stay [Paramount 12362]is a neat, if grim, summation of
the picture painted by these and other black femalesingersin this early period of the Blues.Two years earlier, in
1924, Clara Smith had referred to her ‘highest aspiration’ in The
Basement Blues. [Columbia 14039-D]

For I was born low-down, way down in the low
ground;

Every day I get low as a toad.

But my home ain’t here, it’s further down the
road. (35)

The singer then breaks into some laid-back rap
with Ernest Elliott playing ‘dirty’ clarinet.

There’s people in Mississippi where my folks are
at;

An’ colored folks don’t build much lower down
than that.

My papa’s name is Low.

Mr. Below, if you please.

An’ he can kiss my mammy without bending his
knees.

So, you keep your attic, take the roof or the air
if you choose;

Just keep your attic. Take the air if you choose.

But my highest aspiration is ‘The Basement
Blues’. (36)

The sheer monotony of long hours of hard work
with minimal pay, even drove some poor women to contemplate suicide.
In these early days of the blues, this ‘solution’ to an unbearable
situation was much more common among white working classes than
blacks. In a rare blues, Helen Gross, proposes to ‘go out’ in
a spectacular and grisly fashion which probably influenced a later
recording by Leroy Carr (see JSP 77125) where he ‘did self-murder’.

A
woman’s got to work so hard;

When
she’s in the white folk’s yard.

Every
day it’s just the same;

Lordy! It’s a needless shame.

I
still keep on workin’ til the day I die. (x 2)

All day long I hang my head an’ cry.

Now,
the road is rocky, won’t be rocky long. (x 2)

Soon
there’ll be another gal gone wrong.

Gonna take a pistol an’ blow out my brains. (x
2)

Then you’ll see the last of my remains. (37)

However, generally singers were far more
positive and drew strength from the Blues which are, after
all, the basis of survival + quality. In 1925, Hociel
Thomas chose to sell illicit booze to supplement her meager
wages on
Wash Woman Blues [OKeh 8289]. Hattie Burleson on the
other hand, sought to move out of her cramped circumstances
and presumably get a similar servant’s job that also paid a
little more. Her
Sadie’s Servant Room Blues [Brunswick 7042] in 1928 is
quite a unique expression in the annals of the early blues.

1.

Mrs. Jarvis don’t pay me much;

They give me just what they think I’m worth.

Ref:

I’m gonna change my mind;

Yes! Gonna change my mind

‘Cos I keep them ‘Servant—Room Blues’ all the
time.

2.

I receive my company in the rear;

Still, these folks don’t want to see them here.

Ref:

Gonna change my mind; etc.

3.

I’m gonna change this little room for
a nice big flat;

Gonna let my friends know where I’m
livin’ at.

Ref:

Gonna change my mind; etc.

4.

They have a party at noon;

A party at night.

The midnight parties don’t ever break up right
[also noisy and go on to the wee wee
hours]

Ref:

Gonna change my mind; etc. (38)

The anger that Wilmer Davis obviously feels in
her situation, graphically titled Gut Struggle [Vocalion
1034] spills over into her spoken comments during the break, where
she is supported by attacking banjo played by Johnny St. Cyr and
clarinet by Albert Nicholas who puts a sting in the tail.

Spoken:

Put ‘em in the alley, boys, where I
belong. Play it, Mr. So-and-So. You don’t mean me no
good.

Pass that liquor round, let’s all get drunk. See
if I care. Tell ‘em about Miss Wilmer Davis, Lord.

1.

When I get drunk who’s gonna take me
home?

Papa, when I get drunk I don’t know
right from wrong.

2.

I’ve been in a struggle, folks, an’
it’s really true;

That’s why I’ve got those ‘Gut
Struggle Blues’.

3.

I’ve struggled hard here an’ I’ve
struggled everywhere;

An’ I’ve got to take it for my share. (39)

Her closing shouted comment in the break was
surely echoed by a great majority of African Americans in 1926, when
she recorded Gut Struggle.

While Gene Campbell, from Texas, unusually aware
(for that time) at the debilitating repetitive drudgery endured by
black female domestic servants, offers his wife another alternative.
One to be taken only as a desperate last chance for survival.

I’ve got somethin’ that stays on my mind. (
x 2)

A woman ain’t nothin’ but a fool when wash an’
iron all the time.

I want
to tell all you women, I want you-all to know. (x 2)

What’s the use of washing an’ ironing when there’
a better way to go?

I wouldn’t have a wash woman, I’ll
tell you the reason why. (x 2)

All the money she can make washing won’t buy me a
decent tie.

I’m
sorry for you women, I know just how you feel. (x 2)

Before
I’d have a wash woman, I’d hi-jack, rob an’ steal. (41)

A situation in which one that Sippie Wallace-also
from Texas-describes could be the only option.

I want to get my washing off the line today;

What will become of me if I don’t get my pay?
(42)

But
although some blues including those discussed above, referred to
‘struggling women’, surprisingly there were not as many recorded as
might have been expected. This may have been because most female
blues singers did not hire themselves out for domestic service.
As with their male
contemporaries,
they eschewed the white, Protestant ‘work ethic’-at least the
most exploitative situations. Or a singer like Clara Smith
would last for only a very short period doing such work, to suit her
own requirements. As with Ms. Smith, leaving at the first
opportunity when the first traveling show eased into town. Of
course she was fortunate in being blessed with a powerful singing
voice which soon brought her national success. [See
current book on Clara Smith (WIP) by Max Haymes which hopefully will
be published sometime in 2016. Tentative title is ‘Got The Blues For
The Queen Of The Moaners’ (A tribute and appreciation of the life
and songs of Clara Smith)]

Although Clara, along with Bessie Smith (no
relation) Ida Cox, Ma Rainey Alberta Hunter, Edith Wilson and scores
of other singers who recorded in the 1920s, were the exception
rather than the rule. For many other less fortunate women, the
‘oldest profession’ was a preferred option to underpaid
drudgery, exploitation and abuse. The great Lucille Bogan, reported
to have been a sometime prostitute herself, as well as a bootlegger
and a gangster, describes in a classic song how even here, income
could dry up in the Great Depression. Her customers, or ‘tricks’,
seem to have all but disappeared.

Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down;

I can’t make my livin’ around this town.

Ref:

‘Cos tricks ain’t walkin’;

Tricks ain’t walkin’ no more.

I said, tricks ain’t walkin’;

Tricks ain’t walkin’ no more.

An’ I’ve got to make my livin’, don’t care where
I go.

I need
shoes on my feet, clothes on my back.

Get
tired of walkin’ these streets all dressed in black.

Ref:

But tricks ain’t walkin’; etc.

This way of livin’ sure is hard;

Duckin’ an’ dodgin’ the Cadillac Squad [aka the
police]

Ref:

But tricks ain’t walkin’; etc. (43)

Some five years later, ‘Little ‘ Alice Moore who
was based in St. Louis, Missouri, sang about the same problems as
the Depression ground on inexorably. A hard-hitting singer who is
accompanied here by fellow St. Louisan Peetie Wheatstraw -“High
Sheriff From Hell” on piano, she refers to prostitutes and herself
as a ‘daddy-calling mama’.

An’ I called me a daddy, just about half-past
nine. (x 2)

An’ ‘e said “ No, no, lady. I ain’t got a dime.

An’ I called me another daddy, an’ he began to
fall. (x 2)

He said “ Watch me make this old girl groan an’
havin’ three good balls.” [aka Pawn Shop sign]

If you is a daddy-callin’ woman, please take my
advice. (x 2)

An’
stop callin’ sweet daddies, if you don’t feel they ain’t no dice.
[aka not a likely customer]

I used to stand on the corner, call every daddy
that came along. (x 2)

But now that I have learnt better, I can sing
this ‘daddy-callin’’ song. (44)

As well as protesting about wrongful arrest, the
convict lease system, etc. blues singers often told of being in a
prison cell for however long, and this was a familiar
situation for black citizens across the South and indeed in the more
‘liberated’ North. Even though the blues artist may not have
experienced serious incarceration-as opposed to overnight stays
after a drunken spree-they were fully aware that many of their
original working class black audience did and still do, in 2015.
(see classic example of ‘Mississippi Jailhouse Groan’ and a Rube
Lacy interview by David Evans. In my “Meaning In The Blues”
p.p.59-60. 4-CD set. JSP 77141D) An unshakeable solidarity
existed between the blues singer and blues listener, and this goes
back way into slavery days. Clara Smith sings and moans her
way through Waitin’ For The Evenin’ Mail [Columbia 13002-D].
Where she espies ‘a hard-luck brother moan’ standing at his narrow
cell window appealing to a long gone lover down in Jacksonville,
Florida, to send him bail. He says it’s ayear ago
today and he is STILL ‘sitting on the inside looking on the outside”
while protesting his innocence and hoping fruitlessly for the dinero
to arrive on the evening mail train.

Four
walls an’ a ceiling;

Lawdy! What a feeling.

Just a mean old low-down jail;

Separating me from everything but that evening
mail. (45)

Blind Lemon Jefferson delivered a ‘holler-style’
Prison Cell Blues [Paramount 12622] in early 1928, where
after planting the blame for his sentence firmly on a woman called Nell;
he lays into the brutal prison staff from the ‘the captain’ on down.

Got a red-eyed captain an’ a squabblin’
boss;

Got a mad-dog sergeant, an’ honey, an’ ‘e won’t
knock off.

I’m getting’ tired of sleepin’ in this lowdown
lonesome cell;

Lord, I wouldn’t be here if it had not been for
Nell. (46)

Then he has a go at the ‘government’ and the
prison governor.

I
asked the government to knock some days off my time;

But
the way I’m treated I’m ‘bout to lose my mind.

I
wrote to the governor to please turn me a-loose;

Just
as I didn’t get no answer, I know it t’ain’t no use. (47)

But irony and an unbeatable sense of humour also
feature in the Blues. The up-tempo rhythm by the rockin’ jazz outfit
which includes Charlie Green and Coleman Hawkins accompanying Bessie
Brown, belies the general ‘lot’ of the Southern black citizen in the
earlier 20th. century. Her line ‘Sing my song like
I’m happy an’ gay’ says it all.

All my life I bin takin’ it;

All my life white folks takin’ it.

This old heart they just breakin’ it;

Ain’t gotta a thing to show what’ve I done done.
(48)

Harking back to slavery times when the white boss insisted on the
slaves not to use a slow rhythm when picking cotton, as he realized
the speed of the song reflected the pace of their enforced work. So
they applied the lowdown words describing their feelings about the
whole horrendous system to a ‘jollier’ tempo. Another classic side
on this theme is the sarcastic On Our Turpentine Farm
[Columbia 14485-D] with deadly conditions in sub-tropical
temperatures as the black workers were often waist-deep in
malaria-infested swamp waters down in Georgia and North Carolina, as
well as other states, to collect the tar and turpentine from the
trunks of the longleaf pine, so essential to supplying naval stores
in the South. Singing to a lone guitar about ‘their’ turpentine farm
‘where the work ain’t hard an’ the weather is warm’.

Among the obviously tongue-in-cheek verses, appears one that strikes
closer to home as the ‘bossman’ (usually white) becomes a target.

Our bossman is a lazy hound;

Chew ‘is tobacco, spits on the ground.

Smokes ‘is pipe an’ he lays in the shade;

Laziest man that ever was made.

On our turpentine farm (mm-mm)

On our turpentine farm. (mm-mm)

Where the work ain’t hard (mm-mm)

An’ the weather is warm. (49)

The early blues singers moaned and directed their
anger and frustration at the whole unjust, moronic, and sometime
downright inhumane and insane Jim Crow system that prevailed
throughout their lives. As George Carter in his haunting
Rising River Blues [12750] states when addressing the
municipal authorities of the town he was in:

I got
to move in the alley. I ain’t ‘llowed on your street. ( x2)

These
‘Rising River Blues’ sure have got me beat. (50)

When he tries to flee the mounting high water of
yet another disastrous flood.

These singers employing symbolism, irony, and
anti-establishment lyrics which were often couched in an awful
beauty of obvious feeling-and yes, often with a black humour (no pun
intended). Not outright or in-your-face, You Got To Recognize Me
[OK 8330]from Charles Tyus is unique in early black
song. Tyus, the male partner of the vaudeville duo Charles &
Effie Tyus, making the black citizens’ case for equality with white
society. He praises early blues singers (in 1924) such as
Mamie Smith, Sara Martin and Virginia Liston, along with Mamie’s
cornet player Johnny Dunn. These are likened in their importance to
the scheme of things along with the ‘Underground Railroad’ hero,
ex-slave Harriet Tubman and influential political black leader
Booker T. Washington.

In a different setting but almost on a par with
the Charles Tyus song, is the totally anti-establishment offering by
Charley Campbell, who like Leadbelly also recorded for the L. of C.
It is still not entirely clear whether this is the same man who
recorded a couple of commercial sides for the Bluebird label in the
same year, of 1937. Campbell told Alan Lomax that this is a
“ain’t workin’ song”, pre-empting the later Trouble And Whiskey
[Decca 7862] by Roosevelt Sykes in 1941, where he sings:

I’m gonna stop work, baby, an’ ramble from town
to town;

I’m gonna stop work, kind mama, an’ ramble from
town to town.

Because workin’ ain’t nothin’ but a habit, an’ I
believe I’ll lay it down. (51)

And Martha Copeland sings her praises for
anti-hero Hobo Bill.

Hobo Bill, he’s never got a dime;

He never goes to work ‘cos he’s never got the
time.

Ref:

Ride on. Ride on, Hobo Bill. (52)

While Alberta Hunter got lucky as she relates her
own experience, “an’ every word is true”, which she says could be
some help to her black listeners.

I’ve been pushed an’ I’ve been driven, just drift
from door to door. (x 2)

But Dame Fortune have smiled on me, an’ I won’t
be pushed no more. (53)

Because luck (and her talents) or ‘Dame Fortune’
led Alberta to a highly successful and lengthy career singing and
recording the Blues; bringing in much needed income.

Poverty was of course one of the major causes for
singing the Blues, linked with the great stumbling block of most
African Americans on the bottom of the socio-economic ladder—the
racialist regime run by whites known as ‘Jim Crow’. A rare detailed
reference to this odious system appears on the excellent North
Bound Blues [Columbia 14092-D] by Maggie Jones in 1925.
Some 18 months later, pianist Cow Cow Davenport was quite likely to
have been inspired to cut his boldly-titled Jim Crow Blues
[Paramount 12439]. This in turn might be a precursor of the
L.of C. recording by Leadbelly, made some 12 years later in 1938.
This being his Bourgeois Blues [issued on Rounder CD 1045].
The latter being adapted by the earlier folk circle in New York City
and the Civil Rights movement like, in the 1950s and 60s.

Nor did the Blues have it all its own way.
Parody of gospel songs thinly veiled social protest as in G.Burns
is Gonna Rise Again [OK 8577] which refers to resurrection as in
the religious line ‘these bones gonna rise again’. One very
well-known ‘protest song’ in the sacred mode was also picked up by
the Civil Rights and the folk singers: I Shall Not Be Moved
[Vocalion 1243] by Rev. Edward Clayborn in 1928. Also recorded
by other singers including Charley Patton. Preachers
themselves were often a hotbed of protest on behalf of the black
community, but very few appeared on disc. The
hard-hitting Hitler And Hell
[Bluebird B8851] by Rev. J.M Gates is exceptional. Recorded in
1941, his ‘mini-sermon’ –the WWII references aside- is so relevant
in war-torn countries across the globe here in the 21st.
century.

Protest not often very readily apparent but
protest just the same! As will be seen when trawling through the
remainder of this JSP set of essential blues and gospel recordings.
The Blues is survival music: with QUALITY!

From Lucille Bogan’s prostitute’s moan in They
Ain’t Walking No More, through laid-back irony on The Panic
Is On by Hezekiel Jenkins, via the international wartime protest
Hitler And Hell from the prolific Rev. J.M. Gates, to the
almost ‘throw-away’ spoken comment like ‘I feel so un-necessary’ by
Wilmer Davis and Charley Patton’s sung line ‘Every day seem like
murder here’ which says it all. They had the blues but they
sure were too damn mean to cry!

Max Haymes
October 2015.

Notes

1. ‘Down The Dirt Road Blues’

Charley Patton.

2. Ibid.

3. ‘He’s In The Jail House Now’

Memphis Jug Band.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. ‘Jail Bird Love Song’

Mississippi Sheiks.

7. Rediker M.

p.19. ((‘The Slave Ship’)

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

p.20.

10. Ibid.

11. Lomax A.

p.xv. (‘The Land Where The Blues Began’)

12. Ibid.

p.357.

13. Charters S.

p.30. (‘Country Blues’)

14. Lomax

Ibid. p.358.

15. Evans David

Notes to Female Blues Singers Vol.5

[Document CD. DOCD-5509] 1996.

16. ‘I’ve Got The Blues But I’m Just Too
Mean To Cry’

Dorothy Dodd.

17. ‘Railroad Bill’

Will Bennett.

18. ‘Mad Mama’s Blues’

Josie Miles.

19. ‘Dynamite Blues’

Blind Lemon Jefferson.

20. Misiewicz Roger

Notes to Bessie Tucker 19281929.

[Document DOCD-5070] CD. 1991.

21. ‘Key To The Bushes Blues’

Bessie Tucker.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. ‘Red Ripe Tomatoes’

Jack Kelly.

25. ‘Ain’t No More Cane On This
Brazos’

Ernest Williams

26. Ibid.

27. Lomax Alan

Notes to The Library Of Congress Archive
Of Folk Culture.

[Rounder 1510] CD. 1998.

28. ‘Long John’ (L of C )

Washington (‘Lightning’).

29. ‘Preaching The Blues-Pt.1

Son House.

30. ‘Justice Blues’

Texas Alexander.

31. ‘Work House Blues’

Bessie Smith.

32. ‘Washwoman Blues’

Bessie Smith.

33. Ibid.

34. ‘Pail In My Hand’

Edna Winston.

35. ‘The Basement Blues’

Clara Smith.

36. Ibid.

37. ‘Workin’ Woman’s Blues’

Helen Gross.

38. ‘Sadie’s Servant Room Blues’

Hattie Burleson.

39. ‘Gut Struggle’

Wilmer Davis.

40. Ibid.

41. ‘Wash And Iron Woman Blues’

Gene Campbell.

42. ‘Sud-Bustin’ Blues’

Sippie Wallace.

43. ‘They Ain’t Walking No More’

Lucille Bogan.

44. ‘Daddy Calling Mama’

Alice Moore.

45. ‘Waitin’ For That Evenin’ Mail’

Clara Smith.

46. ‘Prison Cell Blues’

Blind Lemon Jefferson.

47. Ibid.

48. ‘Song From A Cottonfield’

Bessie Brown.

49. ‘On Our Turpentine Farm’

“Pigmeat Pete & Catjuice Charlie”.

50. ‘Rising River Blues’

George Carter.

51. ‘Trouble And Whiskey’

Roosevelt Sykes.

52. ‘Hobo Bill’

Martha Copeland.

53. ‘Experience Blues’

Alberta Hunter.

Illustrations

1. Internet

2. Yazoo CD [2006] 1992..

3. 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue.

p.574.

4. Author’s collection.

5. Author’s collection.

6. Rounder CD [1510] 1998.

p.20.

7. Document [DOCD-5523] 1997.

Cover.

8. Document [DOCD-5477] 1996.

Cover.

Bibliography

1. Rediker Marcus

The Slave Ship (A Human History)

[John
Murray. London] 2008. 1st. pub. 2007.

2. Lomax Alan

The Land Where The Blues Began

[Methuen. London] 1994. 1st. pub. 1993.

Discography - CD 1

1.
Jailbird Love Song Mississippi Sheiks: Walter
Vinson

vo.gtr.yodelling; prob. Lonnie Chatman vln.; Bo

Chatman
vo.gtr.

Thursday, 12th.
June 1930. San Antonio, Texas.

(404145-B)

2. No
Job Blues Ramblin’ Thomas vo.gtr.,
speech.

c. February
1928. Chicago, Illinois.

(20343-2)

3.
Down To (sic) The Bottom Ozie McPherson vo. speech;
acc.Fletcher

Where I Stay Henderson’s Orchestra: Joe
Smith cor.; Charlie

Green tbn.;
Buster Bailey clt.; prob. Coleman

Hawkins bsx; Fletcher
Henderson pno.; Charlie Dixon bjo.

February 1926. Chicago,
Illinois.

(2422-4)

4. Gut
Struggle Wilmer Davis vo., speech;
Albert Nicholas clt.;

Richard M.
Jones pno.; Johnny St. Cyr bjo.

Saturday, 29th.
May 1926. Chicago, Illinois.

(C-375/*/7;
E-3184/85*/86W)

5.
Trouble And Whiskey Roosevelt Sykes vo.pno.; Sidney
Catlett dms.

Thursday, 21st.
February 1941. Chicago, Illinois.

(93519-A)

6.
Raise R-U-K-U-S Tonight Norfolk Jubilee Singers(as “Norfolk
Jazz

Quartet”):
J. ‘Buddie’ Archer ten. vo.; Otto

Tutson lead
vo.; Delrose Hollins bari. vo.; Len

Williams bs.
vo./manager; unacc.

April 1923.
New York City. New York.

(1370-2)

7.
Raise A Rukus Tonight Birmingham Jubilee Singers(as
“Birmingham

Quartet”):
Charles Bridges lead vo.; Leo ‘Lot’

Key ten.
vo.; Dave Ausbrooks bari. vo.; Ed

Sherrill bs.
vo.; unacc.

Thursday ,6th.
October 1927. New York City,

New York.

(144828-2)

8.
Landlady’s Footsteps Madlyn Davis vo.; unk. kaz.;
poss. Cassino

Simpson
pno.; unk.bjo.

c. September
1927. Chicago, Illinois.

(4802-2)

9. Get
On Board Clara Smith vo.; moaning; speech;
Porter

Grainger pno.;
Ethel Grainger, Odette Jackson

(as “Sisters
White & Wallace”) vo., speech,

shouts,
moaning.

Tuesday, 23rd
November 1926. New York City,

New York.

(143143-1)

10.
I’m Goin’ Home Charley Patton vo.gtr., speech.

Friday, 14th.
June 1929. Richmond, Indiana.

(15227--)

11.
Old Rattler (L of C) Mose ‘Clear Rock’ Platt & James
‘Iron Head’

Baker vo.;
unk. dog imitations; one or two unk.

convicts
vo.; unacc.

Prob. May
1934. Central State Farm, Sugar

Land, Texas.

(208-B-1)

12.
Ain’t No More Cane On Ernest Williams vo. prob. speech;
James ‘Iron